Pairing : Helena Cain / Gina Inviere

Rating : Mature

Feedback : I take the time to write, please take the time to let me know you've read it.

Author's notes : This is a response to one of the items posted on the Passion & Perfection Livejournal's "Christmas Wish List"; asking for a story featuring Helena and Gina in a happy ending, rather than the terrible end both suffer in the canon conclusion of their relationship.

I'd originally planned on putting in a number of flashbacks into this story, focusing on the build-up to the boarding of the Scylla, Gina before her insertion into Scorpio Fleet Yards and one or two scenes with Helena as a young woman (18 - 25). Although I wrote some of these scenes, the story began to threaten to grow out of all control so I shelved the flashbacks, and decided to bring it to a close directly.

I'm open to posting some of these flashbacks as shorts, however, if anyone shows an interest.

Chapter I : Admiral of the Fleet ...

The neck of the bottle banged against the lip of the tumbler, the sharp clink of glass-against-glass reverberating against the surrounding walls as the bright amber liquid flowed forth. Setting the bottle back on the tabletop, Admiral Helena Cain braced her hands against the edge of her desk and loomed over the glass.

She absolutely hated the stuff. She hated the way it made her nostrils flare on the way to making her eyes water; she hated the way it didn't so much burn her throat on the way down as set it on fire and ride the flames down to the depths of her gut. She hated that less than half of the bottle, taken in one sitting, would knock her one her ass for the rest of the evening.

Cain commanded absolute respect and obedience amongst the officers and crew of the Battlestar Pegasus, and perhaps a little less than absolute of the same amongst the complement of The Fleet's only other military power, the Battlestar Galactica. She could have anyone from either ship frog-marched into her wardroom – be it Commander or Specialist – and expect to see if not outright fear, or tension then at the very least, respect. The Colonial Military's chain of command was less a chain and more a solid, inflexible beam; there was no room for interpretation, no room for wiggling.

Narrowing her eyes which remained focused on the slither of amber still spinning lazily in the tumbler below, the Admiral tightened her fingers around the edge of her desk and sighed. This stuff had no concept of rank, no understanding or care for protocol. She could down the glass, or the bottle, or flush the lot into the great blackness of space and it would never show a reaction.

Hefting the bottle into her hand and sloshing the liquid around inside, Helena abruptly lifted her free hand from the desk and twisted the cap free with a single jerk of her wrist. Bringing the neck of the bottle to her lips, her eyes rolled closed and the Admiral took a great lungful of the pungent, burning odour.

She loved the warmth it brought, starting in the pit of her gut and spreading out; getting a little higher with every shot until, eventually, it made her arms and legs heavy and her mind slow. She loved the way it took her strength of will – required not simply to succeed in a military life, or reach the rank of Flag-Officer, or survive the genocide of her people and the end of all things, or even to assume command of the last throw of the die an all-but-extinct civilisation – and utterly circumvent it.

Helena loved the way it took all the burdens she carried and laid them down, slowly picking the heavy weight of command from her hunched shoulders and twisted back until there was nothing but a person, a woman like any other woman on any other ship in the fleet, beneath. Opening her eyes and blinking away the brightness of the overhead lamps, the Admiral returned her gaze to the bottle she still held in her hand and the fire water it contained within.

It was so good at making her forget, without asking for anything in return … And that was why she hated it.

Screwing the top back into place and setting the bottle back on the desktop, Helena took a step away as if to create a more tangible distance between herself and the temptation. She had seen countless young men and women throw away careers and lives to the bottle and its promises – and that had been before the end of civilisation as anyone knew it, the beginning of their flight from the Twelve Colonies and the incredible hardships of simply surviving.

Each day survived seemed more and more to be in itself a new problem; as if the reward for waking up was a Universe ever-more determined for you to begin the long sleep. It was all too easy to fall into any vice that promised relief without asking any questions. If nothing else, the weight of expectation on her shoulders only added to her reluctance to take more than a passing snifter or two from the bottle. A Deck Hand whose duties never climbed above the complexity of being able to wield a broom properly might be easily enough replaced, should he prefer to spend his days drinking himself to an early death. Were he to succeed, there might be a dark and horribly logical school of thought that suggested the resources wasted might be better used elsewhere with his passing.

A Raptor Pilot was an altogether different affair; the complex and time-consuming training required to bring a civilian to the standard required meant there was an altogether rarer supply to replace field losses. The instincts and breakneck speeds required to survive – let alone succeed – as a Viper Pilot made replacing those losses even more difficult …

In the entire Fleet, there were only a handful of Command-level officers who might be capable of commanding a single Battlestar, let alone two and certainly not the combined military, logistical and navigational operations of a fifty ship-plus fleet. Snatching the tumbler up from the desk and bringing it up to her lips, a rueful smile passed over Helena's lips. Bill Adama would undoubtedly make it all work … Somehow.

And so the decision was already made and for the Admiral, there would be no merciful vices that demanded nothing from her in return. Her role was clear, vital and irreplaceable. Knocking back the amber liquid and barely suppressing the urge to grimace as the ambrosia tore a burning path down to her gut, she puffed her cheeks out and rolled the empty tumbler against her palm.

She hated this stuff.

...

...

There was something beyond deadly, almost mythical, about the power of a nuclear weapon. It was hard to believe that such destructive energy could be contained in a single warhead, small enough that a person could just about fit one inside the kind of travel cases seen at any random spaceport. Combined in great numbers, they could cleanse an entire world. Cities, people – all scoured clear like the Gods were pulling back time, resetting an entire planet to start again with new faces, new ideas …

He'd smelled Libris burning, watched it with his own eyes. He'd kicked through the blackened metal and the crumbled concrete that littered her streets and choked her highways, stepping over the charred husks of the men – or women, for there was no way to tell one from the other – that lay where the dozens of briefly-burning suns in the sky had dropped. He'd walked through the capital as it melted to slag and molten nothing; skyscrapers simply bowing and falling in on themselves, spreading choking clouds of dust and debris that painted his flesh and scratched his lungs.

He'd walked with only one purpose; to find those responsible and kill them, or die trying. He'd exhausted his rifle, side-arm and anything picked up along the way that looked like it might have still held a bullet. Despite adding the din of gunfire to the crackling of the flames as the streets he stalked burned, not a single enemy fell to his aim. Not a single glinting metal robot, walking upright with a single, baleful eye answered his duelling challenge.

He'd gotten a few shots off at a dagger-shaped something that had roared past, barely thirty feet above his head and heading due south and away from the city centre, but hadn't been able to do much more than scratch the paint. He'd woken up that morning, showered, shaved and watched his home, his city, his world and his civilisation wiped from existence without ever catching a glimpse of the enemy with his own eyes.

But that had all changed, now. They hadn't been on Libris, or Caprica or Virgon or any of the Twelve Colonies … At least not like he remembered them. They'd changed, traded their metal for flesh – exchanged pumps and actuators for hearts and muscle. They wore masks of people that might have been people, once upon a time. It didn't really matter who they were pretending to be, because he knew the truth; he knew what they really were …

He knew who they really were and in a little more time than it would take him to reach the hangar deck, draw his side-arm from its holster and fire, Lieutenant Christopher "Sideswipe" Mearns would show the Pegasus, the Galactica and the whole Fleet the truth that was walking these very halls, sharing their food and listening to their war stories.

Reaching a hand down against his thigh, Mearns rested a palm against the top of his pistol still held securely in its holster. Reluctantly he pulled it away, determined not to attract attention to himself until the time was right, and he demanded the eyes of the whole deck. Shaking his head slightly and focusing on the corridor ahead and the difficult dance of manoeuvring around the dozens of bodies passing through, the Lieutenant swore he could smell Libris burning all over again.

...

...

Placing the sole of her boot against the hatch and forcing it closed with a clang, Kendra Shaw hopped the short distance down to the hangar decking from the Raptor's armoured skirt, brushing the dust from her fleet blues. Walking around the pudgy shuttle's starboard side she caught the eyes of the pilot through the canopy and twirled her finger in the air, aiming it down the flight line like a gun and firing off an imagined shot.

The officer on-board nodded, snapping off a quick salute and turning his attention back to the business of moving his aerocraft. The din of the Raptor's engines climbed to a dull roar as it began to sluggishly pander forwards, heading for the lift platform that would carry out the complex choreography required to turn the craft upside down for launch on the port side's "lower" runway.

All things being equal and the Twelve Colonies being anything but irradiated slag, Kendra might have seen the Hangar Deck twice a deployment – once on arrival for duty and once on departure to a new assignment. Directing aerocraft movements inside the ship and organising departures and arrivals was somewhat of a change in her career path, then, but the Cylons were not particularly accommodating or selective in the personnel they killed or maimed.

And so while the Landing Signals Officer (Internal) Ensign Daniel Tavers recovered from the business end of a conduit bracing, driven through his leg during the Pegasus' last tussle with a Baseship, Kendra found herself the unlucky underling picked seemingly at random to fill-in. Pulling the combined receiver and microphone from her ear and rubbing the sweat from the damp skin underneath the uncomfortable, rubberised contacts Shaw snatched up her clipboard from the trolley nearby.

Slipping the headset back over her head, adjusting to the return of the continual chatter between pilots and directing officers and scanning the next departure, Kendra transmitted her distinctive accent across the Hangar. "Raptor Four-Five-Epsilon, cleared for taxi to Elevator Two."

"Clear for taxi to Elevator Two, Raptor Four-Five-Epsilon," The gruff voice barked back from the transport beginning to nudge forwards from the far side of the bay. Scoring through the name on the sheet held in her hand and tossing the thick black marker back onto the trolley, Kendra glanced up to the sound of more than one raised voice shouting above the roar of multiple turbine engines.

Her features creased in a frown as her eyes tracked an officer – a lieutenant from the rank pins on his collar and a pilot by the flight suit he wore – step over the red painted lines that divided the general purpose spaces of the Hangar from the enormous section devoted to aerocraft movements, and strictly off-limits to unauthorised personnel. She cocked her head to the side, able to do nothing but watch in confusion for several moments as the pilot headed towards the elevator stations used to ferry Raptors up (and down) to the launch runways. He showed no notice of anything surrounding, even as he passed uncomfortably close to several active aerocraft and the terrific screeching of their engines.

"All active craft hold!" Kendra shouted into her headset, as professionalism overrode her confusion. "Perimeter intrusion – Throttles to safe and secure brakes!"

Ignoring the cacophony of sighs, grunts, and irritated questions that flooded through almost immediately, Kendra pulled the headset free of her hair and dropped it onto the trolley. Breaking into a jog to close the distance between herself and the stranger, she struggled to place his face to a memory.

While the Pegasus' advanced systems meant a great deal of the Battlestar was automated, or required very little direct Human observation, it was still an enormous ship and save for the occasional address by the Admiral or other such high-ranking officer or dignitary, The Beast's crew rarely gathered together in their entirety and even then, never in a social situation. At least not before the exodus from everything they'd ever known. Familiarity bred comfort, and the ship's various departments invariably preferred to spend their time with the same faces they worked with.

As hard as Shaw tried, she couldn't place the man's face and anything as demanding as recalling his name was well beyond her. "Lieutenant!" She called loudly, without eliciting as much as a jerk of the stranger's head as he took an abrupt turn to the left. Beginning to grow more than a little irritated her eyes scanned up ahead, past a group of deckhands struggling to move a badly-oiled transport cage loaded with Viper munitions, beyond an unlucky specialist armed only with a lump hammer and busy pounding dents from the floor of the Hangar.

A civilian contractor named Gina Invierre, who'd ended up stranded on Pegasus after the Battlestar's suicidal blind FTL jump away from the burning remains of the Scorpion Shipyards, crouched next to a data terminal a little further ahead of the hammer-wielding specialist. Craning her neck Kendra could see no-one any further forward than the blonde, who seemed engrossed in the data tablet she cradled and paid no heed to the rapidly gathering crowds.

Kendra's lips parted as she prepared to bring to bare the full weight of her authority, conscious of the fact that the chain of command made it increasingly more likely the Admiral's own full authority would come down on her shoulders with every second this bizarre pantomime continued. The words died on her lips as she drew in a sharp gasp of air in their place – eyes focusing on the splayed palm of the pilot ahead, as he reached down towards the holster strapped to his thigh.

Shaw pushed off against the decking, catapulting forward with everything her muscles could provide and more. Fluent not only in Fleet Close Combat Technique – as required of all personnel, officers or otherwise – and the finer, deadlier art of Caprica kick-boxing, Kendra had no useful time for grace, balance, poise or hitting power. The Pilot ahead pulled his weapon clear of its holster in the time it took her to close the short distance remaining and duly raised the barrel, drawing a line on the back of Gina's skull. She leapt forwards, even as his finger slipped inside the trigger guard and squeezed down.

Kendra drove the flat of her shoulder into the Gunman's back, multiplying the effect of her slight weight by an order of magnitude thanks to a running start. Gritting her teeth at the pain arcing through her upper arm as it was forced back against her side, Shaw rolled to the floor as the deafening bang of a gunshot at close range rang out. Ears ringing loudly so that she could hear nothing else, Kendra reorientated herself a little more quickly than the Pilot opposite, who had only managed to climb back to his knees.

Taking a number of deep, steadying breaths the Gunman simply reached forwards for the weapon that had dropped to the floor no more than an arm's reach away. All semblance of the calm becoming and appropriate of an Officer in the Colonial Fleet dissolved in Kendra, who stalked forwards and drove the flat of her boot into the Pilot's unguarded side. The Lieutenant opposite gasped, clutching his rib and grunting as he slumped onto the side of the decking. Satisfied she'd prevented his best effort at obtaining a dishonourable discharge by way of bodybag, Kendra stepped over the prone man and reached down to scoop up the pistol.

Perhaps overconfidence or naivety, but it was only until a moment after the back of her skull crashed painfully against the decking that Shaw realised she'd made a rookie mistake. Rolling onto her front and away from the outstretched leg, trying to blink away the swirling, fuzzy confusion of the concussion that had surely come her way, Kendra scrambled to her feet and hauled the pistol strapped to her own thigh free. In a single fluid movement the Captain clicked the safety off and drew a bead on the Pilot's forehead from point-blank range.

Gritting her teeth in frustration, Kendra couldn't help but notice he had drawn his own bead on the forehead of a blonde and startled face.

Several seconds of silence stretched to several minutes, leaving Shaw with only the diminishing ringing in her ears and the thunder of her heart as it hammered against the cage of her chest. Kendra was conscious of a crowd-of-sorts closing around the three and were she willing to take her eye – and her aim – from the man opposite, she might have had a few choice words for the idiots gathering.

Instead, she settled on something more relevant to the situation. "What's your name, Soldier?"

It took yet another long period of silence before the Gunman opposite even turned half an eye towards her, and longer still before he was moved to reply. "What does it matter?" He shrugged, his aim for the centre of Gina's forehead steady enough that his arm might well have been chiselled from stone.

"It matters," Kendra insisted with a firm nod. "It matters because if I'm going to pull a weapon on another member of the crew, I'd like to know his name before I get any further than pulling the trigger."

The Stranger narrowed his eyes, as if considering the simple request with all the suspicion of a question ten times more probing. Eventually he shrugged, "Mearns, Christopher – Callsign "Sideswipe"."

"Okay," Kendra nodded, her eyes twitching at the prickly sheen of sweat she dare not scratch that tickled her forehead and temples. "Now we're getting somewhere. On to my next question – would you like to explain to me why you're pointing a gun at the head of a civilian?"

The smile that split Mearns face was as disconcerting as the bellicose chuckle that escaped from his otherwise neutral face. Unable to hide the frown of confusion that marred her features, Kendra instead felt anger well up inside her; the suspicion that she was being taken for a fool by yet another deranged, hopped-up Fighter Jock who'd popped one-too-many Stimms becoming ever harder to ignore.

"She's not a civilian!" The Pilot shouted loudly, real desperation creeping into his gruff tones even as all trace of the humour that had widened his lips disappeared to nothingness. His gaze fell back down upon Gina, revulsion obvious in his eyes. "She's not even a person! She's just wearing a mask ..."

Beginning to tire of the entire episode, Shaw forced Mearns' attention back on herself. "What the frak are you talking about, Lieutenant?"

"You can't see it Captain, can you?" He chuckled, the same absurd humour of moments before abruptly reappearing. "You look into her face and you see one just like yours, just like mine! Well I see what's underneath the skin; I see the glint of metal in those soulless eyes … She's a frakking Cylon!"

Kendra's lips parted, her head cocking to the side as if the pistol discharging so close to her head earlier had somehow conspired to scramble the brain within. Her eyes narrowed, and still she struggled to find her voice. Of course there were rumours – not until the Human Race had finally met its entire, complete end would there ever be a state of circumstances where rumours, allegations and outright fallacies were not a fact of daily life.

The claims were simple but shocking : The Cylons look like us now. As if the thought of sentient machines in vast fleets of deadly warships wasn't terrifying enough, to imagine them able to stroll down the corridors and bulkheads you called home, exchange pleasantries – become your friend even, or worse – was simply more than the rational mind could withstand.

Which was why the rational mind rejected such claims as nonsense. If the Cylons truly had such mastery, to be able to exchange their metallic armour for soft, supple flesh, there would be no remnant of Colonial civilisation left to know about it. There would be no Rumour Mill to guess and gossip, for they would all surely be as dead as if they'd remained at home with their families on the Twelve Colonies.

Any possibility that Kendra might have believed Mearns in spirit were dashed when she chanced a glance down at Gina. The Captain's steely gaze found red eyes, brimming with tears powered by the terrible helplessness of a person whose fate hung in the balance, by the barrel of a man at the very end of his sanity and control. The blonde's lips quivered as she sat on her knees, chin tipped up so that her entire world was filled by the muzzle of the sidearm pointed directly in her face.

Even if the woman quietly sobbing on the deck was, by some hypothetical absurdity a Cylon, such was the convincing display of sorrow and fear evident that it would take a far better person than Kendra to call it a lie. Tipping her head slightly to the left, Shaw caught sight of a Marine Fire Team taking up positions behind her and arranging themselves in a semi-circle to face the demented Pilot.

"Even if what you're saying is true," She began with a hard edge to her voice, "You don't have the stripes on your cuff to make that kind of decision. Put your gun down and someone might listen to you, Mearns … But no-one's going to take notice until you stand down. Drop the weapon."

Computers – like the ones that sat in the middle of all that chrome the Cylons wore, she supposed – were able to collate thousands, if not millions of variables and reach decisions in the literal blink of an eye. They operated at the very speed of light and, in some unique cases beyond, and not even the much-vaunted Human Mind could compete with them in terms of raw speed …

… And yet, Kendra Shaw's mind made a valiant effort in comparison. In little more than the blink of that same eye she collected countless variables; from the resigned look in the eyes of a man who held no fear of death, to the subtle arc of travel of his forefinger as it ghosted inside the trigger guard of his pistol. She watched him plant his feet firmly to the deck, and the muscles in his firing arm go taut as he took final aim.

And then she fired, even as his finger began to press down on the trigger.

Kendra was dimly aware of a second gunshot and she supposed, from somewhere in the recesses of her unconscious mind that Mearns had managed to get a round off. Pistol held outstretched, a thin coil of smoke uncurling from the still-hot muzzle and dispersing into the wide air of the Hangar, Shaw's gaze followed the Lieutenant opposite and his brief journey to the decking below.

Christopher "Sidewswipe" Mearns collapsed to the steel with a soft thud, crimson beginning to flow from wounds partially hidden by the blackened, charred material of his flight suit surrounding. Slowly, Kendra panned her head over towards Gina and away from the man she had just put to death without much of a second thought beforehand. The tall, slender woman pressed her hand against her shoulder, teeth gritting together in pain.

Dropping down to her knees and laying her hand on top of Gina's, Kendra gently eased the blonde's fingers away and inspected the deep cut underneath. Scrutinising the wound and satisfied enough it was nothing more than a glancing hit, a single piece of shrapnel broken free by Mearns' final act, the Captain tried to find her voice to offer some comfort.

"Thank you …" Gina managed first, her voice a shaky whisper. For all her own strength of will, Kendra could manage nothing so grand and instead, settled on a simple nod. Climbing to her feet, she became conscious of the pistol she still held tightly in her palm – the grip now slick with sweat. Setting the safety and holstering the weapon to her thigh, Shaw's eyes were irresistibly drawn to the body at her feet.

The Cylons didn't need to worry about completing their genocide; Mankind was doing a fine enough job of finishing itself off without Baseships, or Centurions, or Cylons that walked with bodies of flesh and blood.

...

...

To Be Continued …